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Imitation and recall of optionally deletable sentences by young children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Thomas J. Thieman
Thomas J. Thieman
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Abstract

A set of sentences written in either an expanded or optionally deleted form were read for imitation and delayed recall to a group of nursery school children. A similar set of sentences had been presented for recall to adults. The older children and adults tended to recall the sentences in deleted forms, regardless of their input form. The youngest child tested, however, recalled the sentences in a fully expanded form, even when they had been presented and imitated in deleted form. The results offer support for the hypothesis of memory for non-linguistic ideas by both children and adults, as well as a demonstration of Slobin's (1973) universal operating principle that when children are first gaining control of an optionally deletable linguistic entity, they will often produce only its full form.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 1975 , pp. 261 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

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